


Dreams within Dreams within Dreams within Nightmares

by howtotrainyournana



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Blood, Comfort, Crying, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Possession, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10017173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howtotrainyournana/pseuds/howtotrainyournana
Summary: Dreams have interesting ways of affecting people. Nightmares, even more so.





	1. Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance.

The sound of his own ragged breathing woke him.  


Stanford struggled bolt upright off the couch, gasping for breath to chase the panicked fever of his nightmare away. It had been a particularly brutal one, the details still blazing in his mind and turning his stomach into a nauseous pit. He choked back a few sobs and heaves as he slid off the couch to the cold ground, letting the coarse boards beneath him ground him in reality. Six fingers felt their way over the floorboards, the prick of splinters a welcome point of contact with the material world despite their sting. Six fingers dug themselves into the rough fibers of the carpet (not Experiment 78, which had disappeared from his old bedroom) and tugged in time with his deepening breathes. Six fingers ended up running themselves up and down his wrists and ankles and throat to reassure himself that the shackles were in fact _gone_.  


And so was Bill.  


The door cracked open as Stanford’s breathing finally slowed. He’d become good at not making noise when he woke up from nightmares, able to stifle his screams and stop his limbs from flailing even in unconsciousness. He was certain nothing more than a few unnatural thumps were heard beyond the door of his room. So it was as surprise when  


Stanley stepped into the room, still in his suit and tie and wearing a bemused expression.  


“Something wrong there, Sixer? You fall out of bed again?” he asked, teeth showing as a grin tugged up the corners of his mouth.  


It dropped back into a frown when Stanford opened his mouth to answer and all that came out was a breathless rasp.  


Stanley entered the room and shut the door quietly behind him, turning and approaching Stanford carefully.  


“Hey, whoa, it’s okay. It’s okay. I got you,” he said, kneeling down next to Stanford on the ground. Stanford had his knees pulled up to his chest, fingers still clenched in the carpet on either side of him. Mabel had sewn him a pair of flannel pajamas a few months before and had sent them in one of her care packages, after learning that Ford habitually slept in his dayclothes. He was wearing them now, curling his toes under his bare feet and tucking the hems of the pajama pants underneath with them.  


Stanley gently put his arms around Stanford and pulled him to his chest, tucking Stanford’s head against him under his chin and running a hand through his hair. Stanford relaxed in increments, sitting in silence with Stanley, toes still curled and fingers still meshed in the carpet. He could hear his brother’s heartbeat faintly through Stanley’s suit, beating out a slow and steady rhythm. It was a quiet reassurance against his night terror; they had done this often in the months since August, sitting huddled together in the aftermath of a nightmare. They had found that nothing chased away Ford’s nightmares better than the reassurance of life that a heartbeat confirmed, the steady beat able to cut through the haze better than any words.  


It was a promise against the usual content of Stanford’s nightmares.  


“It was the same nightmare I had a few days ago,” Stanford quietly whispered against Stanley’s chest after a while. He got a light hum of agreement. “Actually, it’s the same nightmare I’ve been having for the last few days.” He fell silent again. Stanley continued to card his fingers through his hair. “It keeps getting more vivid.”  


“Everyone was there. Everyone I’ve ever met, everyone I’ve ever cared about or been responsible for . . . they were there. Even if they’d died decades ago, they were _there_. Between me and . . . him. Bill. I couldn’t move from where I was on the floor, even though I wasn’t bound by anything. I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t speak. I could only sit there in silence and watch. They would stop, and they would turn to me, and they would smile at me, and then they would step in front of me and go walking towards him, arms apart to shield me and then . . and then he would . . .” Stanford trailed off again, choking on the tears that stuck in his throat but had not yet reached his eyes.  


“When one would go, another would appear to take their place. They came in groups, as they had in my life, a constant stream of them disappearing into the flames – the family with the snow dragon, the space pirates I befriended, the groups of refugees I’d saved, Jheselbraum, Fiddleford, the townsfolk, you, the kids . . . It was almost calm, the dream itself. No screaming. No weeping. No running. Just . . . _snuff, snuff, snuff went their lives_.”  


“And they just kept marching off into the fire, one after another. _Smiling_. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.” Tears had started flowing down Ford’s face at the end, dampening Stanley’s jacket.  


Stanford hiccupped quietly for a while, letting the old grief wash through him. It was better to feel, and feel it all, than to run from it. When he felt it, it was _real_ , and he could recognize it and detach himself from it. After he had grown quiet again, he did just that.  


“But it’s okay now. I am not _there_ , I am here. We beat Bill and it is _over_.” Stanford squeezed his eyes shut. “The people I lost before, the people who gave their lives protecting and helping me, I cannot get back. I can only live on keeping them in my heart and making sure that they did not die in vain. And the people I made it through with I get to keep now, and keep safe, right? Isn’t that how this works now that we’ve won?” Stanford asked half-jokingly, expecting a gruff endeared laugh at his uncertainty or a warm affirmative to chase it away. Instead he got an answer that was cool, almost cold, in tone, and nothing that he was expecting.  


“ _I think it’s time for you to wake up, Sixer_.”  


Stanford’s mouth went dry. _What_. A tight lance of panic shot through him as he pulled back from his brother in confusion. “W-what? Stanley? What do you mean?” he asked.  


With an _oof_ Stanford toppled sideways to the floor as Stanley abruptly let go of him and stood. Stanford pushed himself up on his arms as Stanley took a few steps back from him, flicking on the bedside lamp as he did so. Stanford threw an arm up to shield his face from the sudden glare, blinking rapidly to try to refocus in on Stanley.  


“ _Just what I said. I think you’ve been dreaming long enough, Fordsy. Time to wake up._ ”  


Stanford’s eyes finally refocused and Stanley smiled then, wide as his face could stand and showing all of his fake teeth. As he tilted his head back and the lamplight caught his face, his eyes gleamed yellow. And he _laughed_.  


Stanford shot bolt upright from unconsciousness, screaming.  


 

_Dreams within dreams within dreams within nightmares_  
_Who’s left to say what is real?_  
_Walking and burning and laughing and turning_  
_From now ‘till time ends was the deal_


	2. Time to Wake Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there my lovelies! So between bouts of being sick the last few days (and working on homework) I’ve been polishing this up - the sequel to my previous fic _Dreams within Dreams within Dreams within Nightmares_ , which I left off on a rather ambiguous and unnerving note (btw, you definitely need to read the previous chapter before you read this, otherwise this really won’t make much sense; especially read the author's note). So, as I head off for Easter Break, I leave you with another short addition to this fic! And this one has a happy ending, I promise, although I will say warnings for torture and blood and violence and dark thoughts and panic attacks. Stay lovely, my dears!  
> -Nana Graye

Ford wakes up in the Fearamid to the sound of Bill’s taunting and the pain of torture. Well. “Wakes up” is a bit too placid a phrase for the situation. “Nearly tears his throat out screaming” is a bit more accurate.

The shackles burn at his wrists and ankles and throat, just as they did before – _but it wasn’t before it was NOW there is only NOW and all of that before was just an illusion wasn’t it THEY were just an illusion being happy was just an illusion nothing was real nothing was real is this place real please don’t let this be re—_

Ford’s thoughts are cut off in the middle as a bolt of lightning lances through him. He would scream, but the electricity is keeping his lungs from working and his vocal cords are in shreds anyway. Ford writhes on the floor instead.

The pain ebbs away ( _faster than he remembers but what even is time anyway?_ ) and leaves Ford weeping and twitching on the stones of the Fearamid. He doesn’t stand.

“Oh Fordsy, did you really think I’d let you get away that easily? Puh-lease. _From now until the end of time_ was the deal, buddy!” Ford can hear the glee in Bill’s voice. He keeps his eyes shut, tears still squeezing out between the lids and running down his cheeks and nose as he mourns a life that he knows now was never and will never be his.

Bill keeps taunting him as Ford lays there, heaping threats and insults and terrible jokes even _Stan_ would cringe at on him as he cries into the floor. Much, much later and finally spent of tears, Ford opens weary eyes and rolls onto his side to face the dismal scene that is his reality.

Bill sits on his throne, a bright blue martini glass in hand as he continues his tirade against Ford. A strobe light flashes in a corner and a fog machine sluggishly billows smoke into the room. The many bright colors hurt Ford’s eyes and the muffled screeching from outside the walls grates on his ears. There is a slight off-ness about the whole scene as well, but Ford is far too tired and far too despairing to really pinpoint what it is.

Almost casually, Bill flicks a finger in Ford’s direction and the shackles flip him upside down in the air. He’s left hanging there for a long while, blood pooling in his head and his legs going numb, until he is abruptly dropped again to the floor. Ford is unprepared for the tumble and smashes face-first into the floor, knocking a tooth out in the process. He spits blood out of his mouth onto the stones below and continues to lay there, defeated.

Bill laughs.

This is repeated over and over again, sometimes with Bill flinging him against the wall, sometimes with Bill using electricity on him, sometimes with Bill healing him once the wounds get to be too much, with Bill still taunting him and Ford still taking the torture wordlessly, on and on and on and on. _Time is dead and meaning has no meaning_ , Ford thinks bitterly each time he is brought back to full health. And still, through the pain ( _and maybe because of it_ , Ford muses) the nagging feeling of wrongness, of off-ness keeps poking at his mind, more assertively as time passes.

There is something he is missing about all of this.

Something important.

And just like that he realizes what the off-ness means, the thought snapping into crystal-clarity: _this is a dream, too_. 

As soon as he has that thought things go lucid-dreamy for a long moment. The slight off-ness that permeated the Fearamid before snaps into focus, and he realizes several things: there is no one in the room except for himself and Bill, and no evidence of anyone else having ever existed in here; there is nothing outside the windows – just a staticky greyness, like television snow; and lastly, that although he is covered in soot and dirt and seared skin and blood and surrounded by artificial fog, he can smell nothing – no scent permeates his nostrils, and he can’t taste the tears he knows are running into his mouth. And then Ford wakes up again.

In the portal.

He wakes up in a place he landed shortly after the portal incident, a mountainous Southern village with the snow dragon family. “Uncle Ford, will you sing me a lullaby?” the girl with yellow eyes asks sweetly, nightgown dripping blood.

He wakes up as a child in his and Stanley’s bedroom, except there is no Stan and he can’t get out and there’s no bunkbed, just a single twin bed. “This is how it should have been. No unwanted twin.” He isn’t sure if the voice speaking is his own.

He wakes up off of his pile of books in the library at Backupsmore to Fiddleford shaking him awake, saying there was a new society on campus whose first meeting was today and wouldn’t ya know it, they wanted him and Ford to join ‘em. It was a place to forget all your worries and troubles and hey, we’re going t’be late, come on, why are you looking at me like that Ford, don’t ya have things you want to forget? Don’t you trust me?

He wakes up in the gym at high school, with the pieces of his own broken experiment in his hands and no bag of toffee peanuts in sight. He doesn’t want to even contemplate the implications of it and runs, hyperventilating, out of the dark gym and into his next round of consciousness.

He wakes up on the ground outside of an alien prison pod, being pulled to his feet by his nephew. “You know what happens if you offer him that apprenticeship. Are you really gonna fuck this up twice?” the boy asks.

He wakes up in the Nightmare Realm, having been knocked unconscious by a concussive blast and with his head reeling. Experiment 618 was strapped to his back and he was in the midst of carrying out his suicide mission. Ford stumbles to his feet and tears after Bill, the cackling laughter mocking his fragile humanity. When the Portal opens he jumps through without a second thought.

He wakes up in his bunk on the Stan o’ War II, the gentle rocking of the ship trying to lull him back to sleep. Ford doesn’t struggle upright this time, his breathing only slightly more ragged than normal but his heartbeat absolutely _pounding_ in his ears. He swallows thickly a few times and turns over, out towards the room, the leaden weight of his limbs and the prickle of cut-off circulation making the movement difficult. He feels like he’s been asleep for days and the feel of his protesting limbs makes him think that maybe, just maybe, this is reality.

After flexing his fingers and toes and trying and failing to chase the nightmares away, he tosses his blanket off and slides to the floor on his knees and stands. He blinks. Everything is fuzzy in this _dream? reality? waking nightmare? I’m really hoping for reality here!_ and as he pats his face he realizes why. _I don’t have my glasses._ He reaches to his bedside table to find them but they’re not there. He checks the floor and doesn’t find them. He looks on the counter on the opposite wall and doesn’t find them. He pats down his pillow and his comforter and doesn’t find them. With increasing panic he spins around the room, patting blindly on surfaces to find them.

“Please don’t be a dream, please don’t let this be a dream, please be real,” he starts whispering over and over and over. For five agonizing minutes he runs circles around the cabin, patting every available surface and turning things over, desperate to find his glasses. When he finally does (wrapped in a corner of his blanket that he had tossed off of himself) he nearly weeps, bracing his hands on his bed and taking shallow breaths. Stanley’s snores still fill the cabin.

Stanford walks out on deck.

The crisp night air burns down his lungs as he opens the door, but he fills them over and over and over again. The hardest part for a dream to reconstruct iss smell and taste, and the sharp briny scent of the ocean is thick in the pre-dawn air. He could convince himself that this is real.

Six fingers grip the cold railing, a steadying thing with the bobbing of the ship. They were anchored at sea and the steady swells gently toss the ship up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down …

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ford stood out on deck until the sun rose, bare feet growing numb from the cold and fingers growing stiff in place on the rail. The dawn was beautiful, the whole sky awash with gold light from horizon to horizon, streaks of hot pink on the clouds in the east. The call of gulls pierced the air and the breeze picked up, tossing his already messy hair in the wind. He grew colder still but he welcomed the shivers and the touch of the wind on his skin. It had been hours since he had woken up, and nothing had yet gone amiss. Maybe this was real after all.

The smell of coffee was what finally turned his attention from the sea and the sky; it was a sign that his brother was awake and about and that soon Ford would have to face him. It would be time to figure out if reality was real this time.

A few broken strains of a sea shanty and the creak of the old cabin door let Ford know that Stan was now out on deck with him. Still, he didn’t turn to him. He was afraid of what he might see.

“Heya Poindexter, want some coffee?” Stan asked cheerily, bumping a warm mug against Ford’s hand. It burned, but that too was welcome – it burned like it was real. He wrapped a hand around the mug and brought it to his mouth for a sip, eyes still locked on the sky and his other hand still grounding him to the railing. Stan leaned forward against the polished wood, arms crossed, and slowly sipped his coffee.

“Nothin’ quite like waking up to the whole sky on fire, is there?” Stan asked after a while. The sunrise had grown in intensity, bright oranges and deep purples and rich reds and golds and pinks joining together to make a masterpiece of color. Stan could very easily be referring to the sunrise, but the comment still opened a small pit in Ford’s stomach.

Cautiously, he turned to face Stan.

His brother was silhouetted by the morning sun, the planes of his face awash with color and shadow. He looked content and peaceful watching the scenery. Ford couldn’t see his eyes.

“Stanley.”

Stan turned and for a brief moment Ford’s blood ran cold – Stan’s glasses had caught the sun and burned yellow before he readjusted them and the glare left.

“Yeah?” he answered, puzzled. Ford let out a long breath. Stan’s eyes were normal.

“I was thinking that it’s been a while since we called the kids. Do you … do you think we could do that?”

Stan took a long draw from his coffee and fixed Ford with an inscrutable stare. “Y’mean right now? It’s six in the a.m., Ford. I don’t think Dipper even knows what this time of day is like.”

Ford finally let go of the railing, turning to Stan and bringing the cold fingers up to rub the back of his neck. “Ah, right, well, I guess … I mean we could probably …”

“I’ll go fire up the computer.” Stan threw back the rest of his coffee in one long swig and marched back into the cabin, leaving Ford blinking after him. After a few seconds, he smiled, the first real bits of hope budding in his chest. _Maybe this is real after all._

Ford threw back his own coffee and followed his brother into the cabin. The desktop screen was already displaying a dialing circle, the brightly colored icon that Mabel had picked for the twins visible right above it. The call connected and two sleepy teenage voices answered.

“What – _yawn_ – what’s up, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel said. The twins’ laptop was perched on the edge of Mabel’s bed and the two were curled up next to each other on it, Dipper still wrapped up in his own blanket and blinking dazedly at the screen.

“Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to drag you two knuckleheads outta bed to see your sleepy faces,” Stan grinned.

Dipper groaned and curled up into a ball in his blanket. Mabel stuck her tongue out at Stan and dragged Dipper back out of his blanket pile. At a good-natured punch from her, he woke up enough to address his uncles himself.

“Seriously? It’s like … 6:15 in the morning. Not even _Mabel_ gets up this early. Why are you two awake?” he said. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You guys did go to sleep, didn’t you? You know it’s not good to pull all-nighters, especially for people your age.”

Dipper’s comment earned an indignant “Hey!” from Stan and in a moment the two were bickering with grins on their faces, Dipper’s jabs growing sharper and wittier as he woke up. Mabel had leaned back against her pillows, a sleepy smile on her face and one of several large stuffed animals hugged tightly to her chest. When she caught sight of Ford in the background behind Stan, she waved at him with a small laugh, not wanting to interrupt the tennis match of wits going on between their brothers.

Ford felt his heart lift at his family’s antics. Everything seemed to be exactly as it should be and already this dream had gone on far longer than any of the others. Ford took a deep breath to steady himself, letting the earlier buds of hope grow into bright flowers.

He was here, he was safe, and this was _real_.

With a laugh Ford slapped Stan on the back, dropping into the seat beside him and tossing his own teasing taunts his way, to the delight of Dipper. Mabel’s bright laugh echoed through the cabin along with Stan’s indignant cries of “Hey! No tag-team nerds allowed!” Ford smiled and let the warmth of his family and the certainty of their presence wash away the last vestiges of his nightmares.

Outside the ship, the dawn cleared away into a bright sunny summer’s day.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

_Dreams within dreams within dreams within nightmares_  
_We’re here to say what is real_  
_Know that you’re loved and your past is behind you_  
_From now ‘till time ends was the deal_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there you have it! There were a couple references to other fics of mine - _When Irish Eyes Are Smiling_ and _Old Lullabies, Old Scars_ as well as my Portal Ford Drabbles, but for the most part this was just a good ending to a vent fic that wasn’t originally planned to have a happy ending. I hope you enjoyed it!  
>  -Nana Graye

**Author's Note:**

> A / N: I left the ending of this ambiguous on purpose for you to draw your own conclusions about what's REALLY going on. 
> 
> Is this simply a multi-layered nightmare of Ford's?
> 
> Is Bill somehow back and possessing Stanley?
> 
> Is Ford just simply caught in a rather vivid waking nightmare?
> 
> Or did he never actually escape the Fearamid in the first place and EVERYTHING - getting rescued, making up with his brother, saving the town, watching the twins grow up, finding comfort in his family and friends, rekindling relationships, going sailing with his brother - was all simply an elaborate ruse made up by Bill and the deepest desires of Ford's own mind (a Mabel's Dream Bubble all his own) as one last cruel trick by Bill to give Ford everything he had ever wanted in order to get the formula? So that, at the very last moment, he could bring all of Ford's nightmares to life? Including the biggest one of all - that none of it - NONE OF IT - was ever real. 
> 
> Ford had made it all up. Bill had still won. Everyone Ford had cared about was dead. The world was going to end and it was All. Ford's. Fault. 
> 
> Anyway, I'll leave you with these thoughts to mull over on your own! :D This was just a little idea that popped into my head earlier while I was working on Physics homework and thought, hey! I should do something with this! So here we are. (Also this is what happens when I have my own super-vivid and terrifying panic-inducing nightmares ha ha HA). Enjoy!
> 
> -Nana Graye


End file.
